Hilla von Rebay

The German-American artist and patron Hilla von Rebay – born in 1890 in Strasbourg, grew up in Cologne, and studied at the Académie Julian in Paris in 1909/10 and later in Munich. In 1917, she exhibited her works at Herwarth Walden’s gallery “Der Sturm.” In 1919, she became a member of the November Group and in 1923 she founded the artist association “Der Krater” together with Otto Nebel and Rudolf Bauer. Hilla von Rebay’s art was avant-garde; she held the view that art arises solely from the inner world of the artist and does not abstract the external, visible world. Her non-objective works are pioneering. Her artistic approach is closely aligned with Wassily Kandinsky’s ideas and his writing “Concerning the Spiritual in Art” (1911). In 1927, she moved to New York, where she served as the founding director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. In this position, she was not only instrumental in planning the eponymous museum but also responsible for developing the art collection of Solomon and Irene Guggenheim.